Awful I-26 traffic (Columbia, Charleston, Sumter: rent, condos, home)

[lisake]

We recently relocated to Columbia and went to Hilton Head for the holiday weekend (have family living there). We drove home this afternoon, taking I-95 from HH to I-26 toward Columbia. The traffic on 26 was AWFUL! Bumper to bumper most of the way, with several standstills. On a Sunday afternoon. Is this the norm? Was is because of the holiday weekend? There was no construction, nor did we see any accidents. Wondering how we should do things differently next time to avoid adding 30+ minutes to our travel time.

Thanks!

[oz in SC]

It is one of the busiest travel holidays of the year...and everyone west of us was heading to the beach on Friday and home on Sunday.

Luckily for us we were going the other way.

[LexingtonDad]

I26 Westbound on a Sunday is a zoo this time of year. Think of all the people from Tennessee, Indiana, Kentucky and Ohio trying to get back home after a beach weekend. If you want to avoid delays leave either very early (before 8:00) or very late (after 9:00) to avoid the traffic.

[lisake]

Thanks for the info. I expected bad traffic on I-95, but it was only jammed for a short time due to a wreck. Then we hit I-26 and slowed to a crawl for 50 miles. We were lucky in that we left for HH Thursday afternoon ahead of many others, and traffic wasn't bad at all. Now I know to leave earlier on Sunday.

And on a side note, I was wondering if most of the SC beach resorts were like HH, Gulf Shores, Destin, etc., mainly condos that rent Saturday-Saturday in the summer. We're thinking of heading to one of the Charleston-area beaches for a long weekend later this summer.

[Buckeye in SC]

Originally Posted by lisake

Thanks for the info. I expected bad traffic on I-95, but it was only jammed for a short time due to a wreck. Then we hit I-26 and slowed to a crawl for 50 miles. We were lucky in that we left for HH Thursday afternoon ahead of many others, and traffic wasn't bad at all. Now I know to leave earlier on Sunday.

And on a side note, I was wondering if most of the SC beach resorts were like HH, Gulf Shores, Destin, etc., mainly condos that rent Saturday-Saturday in the summer. We're thinking of heading to one of the Charleston-area beaches for a long weekend later this summer.

We were in Charleston yesterday and coming back in the early evening on 26 as we approached the 95 interchange, I began to see all the brake lights, so I quickly exited onto 95 north and utilized the rural state highways that virtually have no traffic, it helps living in SE Columbia (it's actually a bit shorter distance wise to use the back roads than interstates b/c I-77 actually goes west to meet I-26 before you go east if you look at a map). It took us just over an hour to get home from that interchange - it usually takes us an hour w/no traffic going 26 to 77 from there (we live about 5 minutes from I-77).

It's really quite simple, you just take I-95 to exit 93/US-15, go north a couple miles, turn left onto SC-267, stay on that until it ends at US-601, go north, and you can either take SC-48, SC-764 or go to US-76/378 - Sumter Hwy and go west to get to I-77 and Columbia. I'll sacrifice the 5-10 extra minutes any day to avoid the congestion on I-26! Outside of about 2 minutes through Elloree, the speed limit is 55 the whole way, and you can easily go 60 or so.

By the way, does anyone know if there is any plans in the future to reconfigure that I-26/I-95 interchange?? That is horribly designed for people wanting to go I-95N to I-26W, I-26E to I-95N, I-26W to I-95S or I-95S to I-26E.

[waccamatt]

That traffic is typical of Memorial Day, July 4th and Labor Day weekends with all of the people driving home from the beach.

[ranger17]

Even though I'm a newbie, I agree about the increased traffic here on summer weekends. No different then where we came from, living near the interstate which carried thousands of cars every weekend between Chicago to the south, and the northwoods and Minneapolis to the north. Plus being 45 mins from "the Dells" which is a major tourist spot. We actually learned to take back roads if we needed to travel, as near every summer there was road construction ( fixing the previous winter's damage ) and those traffic jams on Friday nite and Sunday nite were brutal at times. Guess if you wanna live in an area that can take you to some vacation spots by car.........

[Brandon Hoffman]

Holiday traffic and HH is more of the exception than the norm for SC beach destinations, much more resort oriented than the others except for Fripp and Kiawah (which I like both more than HH again but Sea Pines is very nice). I actually prefer just about any other beach to HH (I lived there for 3 years).